Phandroid
Soofa is a solar-powered smart bench now available throughout the city of Boston
It’s probably not the first place that comes to mind when you think of a technologically advanced city, yet Boston’s latest public amenity is leaving us to wonder why our own city isn’t providing the same for its citizens.
Now available in public parks throughout the city are “Soofas,” new smart benches featuring USB ports for charging mobile devices while out and about. Because sapping the city’s resources wouldn’t be the best idea, the benches actually feature solar panels and a battery for storing the sun’s energy throughout the day.
If that doesn’t sound “smart” enough for you, how about this: Soofa’s actually tap into Verizon’s 4G network, letting visitors on Soofa’s website know when and where an available smart bench can be found. Pretty handy if you’re looking for a comfy spot to write your memoirs.
Soofa says future benches might come with wireless inductive charging, so you could leave your USB cable at home. Let’s just hope, unlike Starbucks, they choose the correct wireless charging standard.
If you’re in the Boston area and would like to see a Soofa make its way somewhere near you, you can submit location ideas via their website here.
Wear Calc for Android Wear released so you don’t have to yell at your wrist to do math
Those of you rockin’ an Android Wear smartwatch from either Samsung or LG will be happy to know that you no longer have to act like a barbarian and yell at your wrist to do simple math equations. Until now, the only way to do math equations on Android Wear was to say ‘ok google’ followed by the equation you’re looking to solve. Google’s built in functionality works quite well as long as you have a data connection and you’re in a position to speak to your smartwatch. Wear Calc is a simple calculator for Android Wear that runs natively on your wearable, solving these minor pain points with a simple touch interface.
To get started you’ll want to hit the widget below and install Wear Calc on your Android phone that’s paired with your smartwatch. Wear Calc will then magically be installed on your smartwatch, no additional steps required. It’s worth mentioning that I was unable to launch the application by saying ‘ok google start wear calc’ as Google kept confusing wear with where. If you run into this issue, just say ‘ok google start’ and select Wear Calc from the list of applications or head into the touch menu, scroll down to start, and select Wear Calc from there.
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